Comparative Civilizations Review

Volume 23 Number 23 Fall 1990 Article 4

10-1-1990

The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilization: A Call for a Reassessment

Andrée F. Sjoberg

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr

Recommended Citation Sjoberg, Andrée F. (1990) "The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilization: A Call for a Reassessment," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 23 : No. 23 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Comparative Civilizations Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

THE DRAVIDIAN CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION: A CALL FOR A REASSESSMENT*

ANDRH: F. SJOBF.RC

ThIS paper examines the contributiOIl of the Dravidiall peoples to the development of Indian civilization and, more particularly, 1-1 indUlsm. Given the grand scope ofthis subject, I can only sketch the general contours of my argument rq~arding the available evidence and articulate some of the reasons for believing these data must be given due recognition. At the very least many aspects of the traditional view of the role of the Dravidian ... stand in need of rc-evaluation. This essay represents an attempt to synthesize a wide variety of data, including some sociolinguistic materials, so as to highlight certain overall patterns. It must of necessity bypass certa in impor- tant issues which could only be treated in a full-length book. Why this need for a revisionist perspective? Unfortunatelv, the image of the Dravidians, who have been a minority group (hom the perspective of social power), has been considerably distorted in the works of many scholars of Indian civilization-be they Indians or, especially, Westerners. Irldeed, early Indian history was largely compiled from the vantage point of the conquerors rather than of the conquered (the non-Aryan peoples). Until quite recently these patterns of interpretation were reinforced by it body of \Vestern scholars who, for reasons of their own, es- poused and in some cases even identified with the traditional Aryan perspective on Indian history. More particularly, they assumed that Indian civilization has been mainly Aryan ill its origin and development. 1 This pro-Aryan orientation is reHected even ill current writ- ings. As recently as 1980 the widely cited scholar O'Flaherty

* A preliminary version of t his paper was presented at t he International Society for the Comparative Study ofCivilil.ations, Santa Fe, on May 31, 19R6.

40

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 1 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

41

(I9ROa:xviii) a\owed, albeit in a passing remark, that "the ancient Indians, after all, were Indo-Europeans par excellence." Are we expected to helieve that the ancient Indians were primarily Indo-Europeans? Hardly. This kind of unf(Jrtunate remark sup- ports my contention that the significance of the non-Aryan, and especially the Dravidian, element in Indian history has yet to be sufficiently appreciated. However, ill recent decades a minority of Indologists have \oiced the need f<)r an alternative perspective. During the past twenty years 1 have also sought in a modest way to correct the record. I recall rather vividly in the 60s and early 70s certain prominent Indologists dismissing my views regarding the impor- tance of t he Dravidian component in I ndian culture as misguided or ill-informed. Although I expect my current arguments to be challenged, t here is clearly a greater receptiveness today to ac- knowledgement of the Dravidian contribution to the develop- ment of Indian civilization. In order to deal with the main problem of the paper~i.e., the contribution of the Dravidian peoples to the formation and de- velopment of Indian civilization--<:ertain background data are in order. First, it is necessary to document the shifting orientation of indologists, especially in the West, towards the historical role of the Dravidians. Second, we shall examine briefly some of the problems concerning the nature of the evidence that we are seeking to interpret. Third, before we can consider the contribu- tion of t he Dravidians, we need to establish just who they are. All of this sets the stage for the discussion of the Dravidian compo- nent in the development of Indian civilization, and Hinduism in particular'.

Changing P(TljJl'(tiz1e.1 o/Westerrl Scholars on the Role o/t/te Dral'iriians

, I'he im portant earlier works 0(' this century exhibited a general neglect of the non-Aryan, essentially Dravidian, contribution to Hinduism alld Indian civilization in general. Zimmer's Phi/osojJlzies oj India (1951) (based on his last lectures in the early 1940s and seemingly representing a break with his earlier writ- ings) made him all exception among these scholars in that he recognized the crucial role of the non-Aryan element in the philosophical traditions of India. However, although this book is

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 2 - Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

42 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

viewed as a classic work, the implications of his arguments con- cerning the Dravidians seem to have been generally ignored. Renou's Religions of Ancient India (1953), while it does tend to glorify the Vedic period, offers many bits of evidence of the importance of the non-Aryan component in the later Hinduism. However, the discussion is poorly organized and presented in such a low key that the non-Aryan dimension docs not clearly emerge. Nor does the author mention the Dravidians per se more than once or twice. Basham's widely cited monograph, The Won- der that was India (1968; first published in 1954), likewise refers to the Dravidians in only a few places (although he gives some attentioll to ancient Tamil literature). Also, it greatly underplays the role of the Dravidians and at times presents a negative image of them.2 Or consider the widely-used textbook edited by Elder, Lectures in Indian Civilization (1970). The hook includes some selections on Tamil literature and South Indian bhakti and very briefly treats the South Indian marriage system. But nowhere in this lengthy work does the reader gain an indication of the crucial role played by the Dravidians in the development of Hinduism and of Indian civilization as a whole. Another widely lIsed textbook on Hinduism, Hopkins' The Hindu Religious Tradition (1971), implicitly recognizes the non-Aryan component when it speaks of the challenge to the Brahmanical religion from the popular religious traditions, hut the existence of the Dravidians per se is barely acknowledged. Significantly, the author labels the post-Vedic developments that arose in response to pressures from the popular traditions as "the new Brahmanism" (e.g., p. 63)! Recently, however, some changes in these traditional patterns have been discernible. Basham, in his "Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia" (1979), presented a very different picture of the Dravidians than he did twenty-five years earlier. I n this later work he proceeded on the assumption that their role in the develop- ment of Indian civilization has been a crucial one. Allchin and Allchin, in The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakis- tan (1982), now simply take it for granted that the Dravidians were a significant factor in the formation of Indian civilization. Con- trast this with their 1968 work. And we find Staal (1983) attribut- ing aspects of the Vedic ritual to non-Aryan sources.

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 3 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andree F. Sjolmg 43

Crucial to this gradual modification of approach has been the work of BUlTow, Emeneau, and Kuiper (see discussion farther on) in presenting "hard" linguistic data which seem to place at least some Dravidians in northwestern India at the time of the arrival of the /\ryans and during the period of the composition of the body of Vedic scripture. Butalso significant in helping to turn the tide of opinion have been the recent works of specialists in Tamil culture, particularly Hart (1973, 1975, 1980) and Zvelebil (1973, 1975). These scholars have, however, fixused on one group, the Tamils, and are less apt to speak of Dravidian influ- ences in general. Among Westerners the scholar who comes closest to articulating my own general position concerning the critical role of the Dravidians in Hinduism and Indian civilization is Tyler, a highly respected anthropologist. In India: An An- thropological PenjH'ctive (1973:68) he observed that Aryan orthodoxy was obliter'ated by heterodoxy, and even though the heterodox cults thelllselves eventually declined, the pattern of Aryan dominance was fill'ever shattered. Relllnants of Arvan culture were to survive the destruction but only in "Dr'avidianized'" /(>rm. In every cul- tural sphere_tht' ancient Dravidian fi)nns "easserted the'..!.lselves, trans- mogrifying Ar'vall doctrines and conventions, reducing Aryan gods to Dravidian god~, replacing t he Aryan cult of the Ltmily altar with the Dravidian temple, subordinating ritualism to devotionalism, transfi)rm- ing class divisions into caste distinctions, and welding loosely knit tribal confederacies into centralized empires. The Hindu synthesis was less the dialectical reduction of orthodoxy and heterodoxy than the resurgence of the an~ient, aboriginal Indus civilization. In this process the rude, barbar'ic Aryan tribes were gradually civilized and eventually merged with the autochthonous Dravidians. Although elements of their' domestic cult and rit ualislll werejealously preserved by Rrahrnar~ priests, the hody of their culture survived only in fragmentar'y tales and allegories embed- ded in vast, syncretistic compendia. On the whole, thp Aryan rontribution to inriian wlture is ill.ligmjicant. The essential pattern of Indian culture was alr'eady established in the third millennium B.C., and ... the fill'm of Indian civilization perdured and eventually reasserted itself. (Italics supplied.)

Somf Comments on the Data and Mdhori

One of the problems encountered in studying ancient historical patterns is obviously the paucity of reliable information. The fragile nature of the data is exacerbated in India by the fact that

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 4 ....

Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

41 CO~II'ARATI\'E CIVILIZA liONS REVIEW

the early records were written mainly on perishahle substances such as palm leaf, and this long remained a tradition in the suhcontinent. But there are other prohlems as well. Until recentlv the amount or archaeological research was modest at best. Also, only in the past half cent ury has a clucial body of linguistic evidence of the Dravidian impact on Aryan languages been brought to light. Another stumbling block has heen the fact of overspeciali;:ation in lndology. Western Indologists have traditionally been Sanskritists or oriented to an Aryan-Sanskritic bias. At t he other pole, a number of scholars have concentrated Oil Dravidian lan- guage and culture (and quite recently we have seen a growing interestof\Vestern specialists in Tamil culture). But few there are who have taken the broader view, seeking to interpret the bits and pieces of historical data within a pan-Indian framework. What is needed is a gestalt perspective toward Indian civilization, one that takes into account a wide variety of\inguist-ic and cultural (includ- ing archaeological) data for the slIhcontinent as a whole and, further, olle which seeks to pbce the subcolltinent within ih broader Eurasian setting. As to methodology, much of my argument rests llpon "reason- ing through elimination" (d. Durkheim, 1951). That is, the frag- mentary nature of the data has often led me to examine a number of alternative explanations for major developments ill Indian civilization. Implicit in my argument is the que~tion: "vVhirh explanation best accounts for the data at ham\;" and then I eliminate those that seem least plausible. It is mainly through this method thaI I have conclucled that the Dravidians mllst have been a major force in the formation orthat loose aggregate of cultural patterns we call Hinduism. A major facet of the ;u ~umcnt is that many key features of Hinduism lack any counterpart in the Indo-European culture as it has been reconstruclt"d bv scholars. On the other hand, few of these items can be clearlv connected to any non-Aryan culture but that of the Dravidians.

Who Are the /))"{widians?

There has been a tendency to a~sllme that speakers of" Aryan" languages today are necessarily "Aryan" in their cultural and racial heritage. In point of fact, the majority of the anre~t()r~ of

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 5 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andr,'!' F. SjoiJng

Indo-Aryan speakers Illust at one time have spoken non-Aryan languages, mainly those belonging to the Dravidian bllllily. At the time the Aryans entered India (undoubtedly in a series of different waves of migrations) they must have been few in number compared to the indigenous population. Although they were a semi-nomadic people with a fairly simple culture they were tecllllologicalIy superior in certain respects-they had horses and chariots and superior weaponry, making it possible for them to cOllq uer t he peoples in the nort hwestern part of the subconti- nent. Thev may ha\'(~ played some part in the demise ofthe Indus Valley cities. On the other hand, t hev themselves had not reached the level ofcivili/ation-i.e., they did not have cities or writing or t he social arranl4'ements t hat typically accompany these develop- ments. But who were the peoples already settled in the northwestern part of the subcontinent at t he time of the Aryan invasions? For t his we have on Iy skim py archaeological or historical evidence. Earlier it was asslllned that M linda-speaking peoples were the key non-Aryan entity encountered by the Aryans. However, this LlIlllOt be supported by the availahle data. Munda loanwords ill the Vedas are not sufficiently numerous to indicate that Munda speakers had a significant impact on the authors of these works. On the other hand, Burrow found about twenty Dravidian loan- words in the oldest Veda alone, and Emeneau and Kuiper (see farther on) have discussed the probahle effects of the Dravidian languages on the oldest Aryan texts. The linguistic evidence t~)r Dr'.lvidian impact gTOWS increasingly strong as we move from the Samhitas down through the later Vedic works and into the classi- cal post-Vedic Iilerature. Also, the availahle data indicate that the Munda-speaking people have gellCraIIv constituted small, fragmented preliteratc communities whose cultural power and influence has been lim- ited at hest.:! III contrast, the Dravidians have long been the dominant and most nUllltTOUS of the non-Aryan peoples in India. l 'ndOllbtedly some Dravidialls were accepted into the Br~ihmal.l /()Id evcll during the period ofthc Vedas. According to Meenak- shi (I9H5:211-212) several Vedic hymns were composed by nOll- Aryans. Kuiper (I967:H7) holds that the existence of several lion-Aryan names among the Vedic priests proves that members of II1digenous gnHlps had heen adopted into t he Aryan commu-

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 6 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

46 COM!' A RATI VE CI VI LI Z,\TIONS REV I EW

nity. In the post-Vedic period, in the time of Manu, "Dravidians were acceptable as Aryans if they performed the necessary pe- nances and rituals" (Basham, 1979:5). And Vyasa, the "Great Redactor" of the Vedas, was mainly non-Aryan in ancestry (Chat- terji,1965:55-57). Examination of the early Tamil literature indicates that the Tamil-speaking peoples in South India had developed a fairly advanced culture by the time of the first recorded contacts with Aryans a little over two thousand years ago. 4 They had large towns and capital cities and a complex social structure.5 They also developed a unique literature, the Sangalll POetl,), which dates from just before the beginning of the present era. The Tamil urban culture at that time seems to have qualified in every way but one for designation as a true civilization. The exception is that there is no evidence that the Tamils used writing until after it was introduced by the Aryans ill about 200 B.C.E. However, given the advanced stage of the Tamil culture at the time ofthe fIrst Aryan contacts, it is not unlikely that some experiments had earlier been made by the Tamils in the direction of writing. In the light of these various linguistic and cultural data it is difficult to see how some Indologists such as Hock (1975) can assume that the non-Aryan inf1uences on Indo-Aryan came mainly from the Munda-speaking peoples. 6 In contrast to the Dravidians, who included large, settled populations, some of whom were on the veq~e of developing a true civilization,1 the Mundas have been relatively small, scattered preliterate groups. As to the Aryans, it is obvious from the many cultural and linguis- tic changes that have occurred over time in North India and the modifications in the racial make-up of the Aryan-speaking people that a great deal of intermixture with the indigellous population has taken place. The dominant element in this pre-Aryan popula- tion were the Dravidians. There are no other contenders among peoples known to us.

Dr{J1'idian Origins

Let us now turn more specifically to the question of the origins and nature of the Dravidian peoples-their linguistic, cultural, and racial background. Some time ago I wrote a survey essay on this subject (Sjoberg, 1971) and, so far as I am aware, no one has

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 7 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

AnriTPI' F. Sjoberg 47

sought to update this summary by incorporating findings since that time. The information on some areas today is more abun- dant, allowing me to place that synthesis on a firmer foundation. In that essay I argued that in terms of their physical type the Dravidians, though they are a mixed people who include an important proto-Australoid element, are primarily a darker skinned variet y of the Mediterranean Caucasoids, most of whom are found in southern Europe and the Middle East. Their lan- guages may be connected with Elamite, which was once spoken in the area of present-day I ran. However, there is stronger evidence linking the Dravidian languages with U ralic in northern Asia (and parts of Europe) and to some extent Altaic in central and eastern Asia. Caldwell advanced this thesis in 1856, but it was not taken seriously for more than a century. Then a few scholars began to add to the data, and in the past decade or two the theory has truly been revived. In 1968 Tyler listed some important Dravidian- Uralic cognates in root words. But the salient work in this field is the unpublished dissertation of Marlow (1974), who presented data that are powerful enough to bring many skeptics around to this view. Trained in Dravidian languages she was also a native speaker of Finnish who was able to make extensive use of the Etymological Dictionary of Uralic, which is in the Finnish lan- guage. She then systematically compared the root words therein with those in Burrow and Emeneau's A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (and Supt)/fmfnt) (1961, 1968). Tyler (1986) in a recent unpublished paper seems persuaded by Marlow's data. And he speaks of "an unbroken chain of interconnected cultures stretch- ing from Central Asia to Central India." If correct, this would reduce the importance of the geographic distance between Dravidian and Uralic as the main stumbling block to acceptance of the possibility of relationship between the two linguistic groups. But there are other pieces to the puzzle of Dravidian origins. It is significant that whereas the Dravidian kinship terminology has cognates with Ural-Altaic (Tyler, 1986), the Dravidian kinship system itself finds its closest parallels with that of certain Austra- lian peoples, primarily the Kariera. H On the other hand, more general cultural patterns-in particu- lar the archaeological findings-provide evidence of an earlier cultural substratum extending from South India through the

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 8 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

48 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

Indian subcontinent and into the Middle East and southeastern Europe. Hord (1987) speaks of the configuration Mother Goddess-Son/Consort-Bull-Mountain as having once been wide- spread in this area. Devotion to a mother goddess and other female deities, often found in conjunction with cattle rituals and snake worship. is prominent still in India in areas with a strong non-Aryan substratum. What are we to make of the fact that the racial, cultural, and linguistic data point in different directions as possible areas of origin for that entity we call "Dravidian"? First, the linguistic data point to Central and Northern Asia (if we follow the theory of Dravidian connections with Ural-Altaic). (Or they learl us to the Middle East, and perhaps earlier to Central Asia, in the case ofthe Elamite hypothesis.) Second, the Dravidian culture is very likely an amalgam of patterns drawn from a variety of cultural groups who intermingled in or near the South Asian area prior to the Aryan migrations into India. Third, the Dravidian-speaking peoples today are a mixture of several racial sub-types, though the Mediterranean Caucasoirl component predominates. No doubt many of the subgroups who contributed to what we call Dravidian culture will be forever unknown to us. Nevertheless, Allchin and Allchin (1982) connect several different streams of prehistoric culture in India with the Dravidians. As the ar- chaeological record becomes more complete adrlitional pieces of the puzzle may fall together. Still, the complexity of the question of Dravidian origins must be kept in mind as we proceed to analyze the probable impact of the Dravidians on the formation and development of Indian civilization.

The Dravidian Impact on Hinduism

In attempting to assess the Dravidian contribution to Hinduism it is necessary to examine the problem within a broad time frame. Only the general thrust of my argument can be set Icnth here, but it is clear that my interpretations differ somewhat from those of traditional lndologists. As an aid to interpretation of the historical materials I shall utilize Redfielrl's "typology" of the Great and the Little Tradi- tions9 as an organizing framework.

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 9 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andrl'!, F . .)'john;!!, 49

The Grmt Tradition I() Most of my attention will be focllsed upon the Great, rather than the Little, Tradition, As for the Great Tradition, it is impor- tant for purposes of analysis to separate out the Early Vedic from the Later Vedic and the Post-Vedic periods. Although some specialists would not identify the Early Vedic period with Hin- duism, designating it by a separate term, Vedism, the early period does provide a f(Hll1dation for understanding certain later de- velopments in Hinduism. As will be observed under the disclls- sion of the Later Vedic and the Post-Vedic periods, one finds a differentiation between "revealed scipture" (Sruti) and "popular scripture" (Sm!ti). Some of the latter began to emerge in the Later Vedic per'iod, but they continued to be important in the Post- Vedic era. The Early Vedic Period. I use the designation "Early Vedic" to refer to the period of the Sarnhitas (the oldest texts), The earliest of these, the (lg Vcr/a, stands somewhat apart from the others in terms of its IllSanskrit, or Old Indo-Aryan, which belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European Eunily oflanguages. Thus the linguistic con- nections of Sanskrit are to be found outside of India, and mainly to the west. Other evidence strongly supports the assumption that the speakers of Sanskrit, who called themselves Aryas, were ra- cially and culturally connected with peoples in the Middle East and in Europe, and most particularly the ancient Iranians. Mainly because the oldest Veda, the lJ.g Veda, seems to have been com- posed not long after the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., it has long been assumed that its authors entered northwestern India, or the general region of the upper Indus River Valley, roughly about that elate. However, this view is increasingly being challenged. Burrow and Kuiper (see discussion farther on) ar-

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 10 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

50 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

gued strongly that the number of linguistic changes that had taken place in oldest Indo-Aryan since the common Indo-Iranian stage was considerable, which indicates that a wide interval must have elapsed between the entry of the Aryans into the Indian subcontinent and the composition of the first Vedic hymns- though, as Chatterji (1951,1959) pointed out, racial and cultural fusion between the Aryans and the non-Aryans could already have begun before the Aryans reached India, perhaps in the area of eastern Iran. Adding to the complexity of the arguments, Fairservis and Southworth (1986) contend that the Aryans who composed the Vedas must have been preceded in northwestern India by still earlier Indo-Aryan peoples. Still, there are important features of the Vedic religion that seem to have connections with the broader Indo-European cul- ture and thus can be labeled "~g Vedic Aryan." The following is a brief summary of the salient features of the early Vedic religion, many of which soon disappeared or underwent transformation, though some others have been sustained over time. The focus ofthe Aryan cult was sacrifice. There were domestic cults centered mainly about the hearth with rites performed by the head ofthe household. Aspects of these have continued to the present day. The ~g Vedic texts do, however, refer mainly to large-scale sacrifices of animals involving complex rites and par- ticipation by a variety of priest-specialists. The chief purpose of the sacrifice was to please the gods and thus obtain special favors from them. The rituals and the formulae that could attract the deities to the sacrifice and induce them to grant sllch boons were known only to the priests. The Aryan gods represented and controlled the forces of na- ture. The most prominent of these deities were celestial gods- those who represented the sky, the sun, and aspects associated with the sky such as rain, clouds, or the wind. Many of the deities had counterparts in the religions of other Indo-Europeans such as the Iranians, the Greeks, the Romans, and some of the Ger- manic peoples. One was VaruQa, who corresponded to an Iranian deity later known as Ahura Mazda. Though he was associated with the sky and rain, VaruQa was mainly the guardian of the cosmic order and the overseer of moral action. "The proper course of things," in the eyes of VaruQa, became the standard for

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 11 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andrp(' F. Sjoherg 51 the cosmic, moral, and liturgical order (rta). (Many scholars as- sume the origills of the later rllwrma to lie in the early Vedic rla.) Already in the ~g Veda, and increasingly in later Vedic texts, interest shifted away from Varuna (and from Indra, the greatest of the ~g Vedic gods) to focus on the terrestrialdevas, who were dominated hy the divinized elements of the fire sacrifice: primar- ily Agni, the god of fire, Brhaspati, the divine cultic priest, and Soma, the most important lihation in the sacrificial ritual. Of these three, Agni survives today in an attenuated form in the non- Aryan (mainly Dravidian) based pupi. Furthermore, important aspects of certain life cycle rituals which were performed in the Vedic period are still perpetuated in India along with the appro- priate Vedic mantras. Renou (1953) helieved that the Aryan religious system (which he called Vedism and treated as a separate religion from the later Hinduism) arose within a cultural vacuum. He argued that little in Vedism was inherited or borrowed and that it developed while the Aryans were living "in seclusion" in the upper Indus region. But it seems more than questionahle that the Aryans could not have been influenced hy the peoples they encountered in north- western India, especially in light of the fact that at least some Aryan groups must have been in the Indus Valley region during the waning days ofthe Indus civilization. This was a civilization in the full sense (though we have only the skimpiest of written records, none of which has yet heen deciphered). Many experts assume that the Indus script very likely represents an early form of Dravidian, and it may be significant that surviving still today in the lower Indus Valley region are the Dravidian-speaking Brahuis. Still, the script may represent some language group unknown to us. Renou did not take account of the work of Burrow (1945,1946, 1947-194H),1I which suggested Dravidian sources for around five hundred Sanskrit words, including about twenty in the oldest Veda. Later work by Burrow (1955:386-3H7) and hy Burrow and Emeneau (especially 1961, 196H) modified and added to the list somewhat. Emeneau (1956, 1962, 1974) and Kuiper (1967) also pointed to some evidence for grammatical borrowings from Dravidian into Old Indo-Aryan, including Vedic Sanskrit. (The influence ofa "Dravidian model" on the grammar of the succeed-

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 12 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

52 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

ing stages of Indo-Aryan is very apparent (sec, e.g., Katre, 1964). In addition, both scholars considered the existence in Old Indo- Aryan of a new set of phonemes-a series of retroflex consonants that contrast with dentals-to be mainly attributable to Dravidian influence; at the very least, the borrowing of Dravidian lexical items triggered a rearrangement of the Indo-Aryan phonological structure. Emeneau (1962) also argued that a logical source of retroflexes in Indo-Aryan was the Dravidian speakers' interpre- tation of allophones of Old Indo-Aryan in terms of their own phonemic system as they were learning the Aryan language. All of this points to a good deal of intermingling between the Aryan and the non-Aryan peoples in North India (see also Southworth 1974). It is obvious that Renou's assumption of the "secluded" exis- tence of the Vedic Aryans can not be supported. I have dwelt upon these linguistic data because they constitute the strongest evidence undermining the assumptions of Indologists who are committed to the notion orthe purity ofthe "Aryan/Vedic" tradi- tion.12 The Later Vedic Period. Although there were continuities be- tween the Early and the Later Vedic traditions, certain striking discontinuities are also apparent. These latter are often glossed over by scholars who focus on the Vedic period as a whole. The literary sources of the later Vedic period are still ,Sruti, or revealed scripture, but the content of the most important of these works, the Upani~ads, is strikingly different from that of the Samhitas. The former are basically philosophical in nature, as opposed to the mainly ritual intent of the latter. Many new metaphysical concepts appear in these texts, including some that are the very foundation of stones of the later Hinduism. I would argue that the dramatic change in the thrust of the religious texts of the late Vedic period can be attributed in large measure to the more prominent role now being played by non-Arvans, especially Dravidians, ill the formation of the Great Tradition. An Aryan- non-Aryan synthesis, cultural, linguistic, and racial, had been taking place, perhaps from the beginning of the Vedic period (see, e.g., Deshpande, I979:297-29H). Before setting forth the more specific features of the argument I shall mention certain sociolinguistic matters. One of the leading sources of confusion in Indian studies is the general tendency to

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 13 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Awlrpl' F. Sjo/;l'Ig 53

assume that because a philosophical concept (or some other item of culture) carries a Sanskrit label it is therefore" Aryan" in origin. For example, lamS(lrrl is unquestionably a Sanskrit word, but what is si~nified by it-rebirth, or the wheel of existence-is apparently not Aryan in OI'i~in or part of the Indo-European religion that the Aryans broll~ht with them to India. Indeed, many, though cer- tainly not all, of the basic concepts that undergird the Indian philosophical systems-be they Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain-have no counterpart in the Indo-European reli~ion as it has been reconstructed. Yet they all carry Sanskrit labels. The tendency to assume that these concepts are A ryan has contributed to the ~eneral dismissal of the non-Aryan, mainly Dravidian, role in the development of Hindu reli~ion and philosophy. How can we account for the wide use of Sanskrit terminology fl)r many items of Indian culture that may not be Aryan in origin? The Aryans, not lon~ after their arrival on the Indian scene, be~an to adopt many non-Aryan features as their own. Chatterji (1959) observed that such borrowings occurred not just in lan- ~uage, religioll, and philosophy, but also in the areas of food and drink, dress, house types and furnishings, systems of computa- tion, etc. As these were woven into the emerging cultural fabric many acq uired Sansk rit labels. Such was particularly the case with religious-philosophical concepts, for Sanskrit was the accepted scholarly and sacred lan~uage of the authors of the Vedas. Even- tually use of these concepts within an established body of sacred texts made them reference points of the religious philosophy of the society as a whole. At this point we can turn to an examination of some important metaphysical concepts of the later Vedic period. It was in the C pani~ads that these concepts first made their appearance in the literature (although in some cases a term employed in the Salilhitas became perpetuated over time but later referred to a much-modified version of the original concept that it desig- nated.) However, it was only considerably later that any systematic philosophical systems emer~ed. My intention here is to discuss the most im (Jortant of these cOllcepts and to try to determine whether they are likely to have been non-Aryan in origin o[ at least heavily influenced by non-Aryan traditions, particularly the Dravidian. Again, it is important to ask oneself whether these concepts have counterparts in the early Indo-European culture as

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 14 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

54 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

it has been reconstructed. Unlike some scholars, I find it impossi- ble to assume-given the linguistic evidence for non-Aryan influ- ences and given the fact that the Aryans were relatively small communities within a largely non-Aryan environment-that these concepts evolved through some "internal logic" without any appreciable external influence. Such a pattern would run counter to what we know of cultural borrowing in a variety of historical social settings. Especially important among those concepts that appeared in the later Vedic texts and which formed the basis for the post- Vedic Hindu philosophy are karma, (Karman), s(lIils(lra, If/okso, and Brahman (with (ltman). The doctrine of karma is mentioned in several of t he U pani~ads as a new teaching. At about the same time the classical societal system based on caste was in the process of emergence. From that time onward Mama, sarhsara (rebirth or reincarnation), nirl'ana (annihilation of the personal seIt), rrwk,!a (release), and the caste system developed in a combination that was to become the central pillar of classical Indian culture. It is true that there are problems of defining karma and other metaphysical concepts. In the papers of a recent conference on karma the observation was made that despite an "ultimately vain attempt to define what we meant by karma and rebirth ... the unspoken conclusion was that we had a sufficient idea of the parameters of the topic to go ahead and study it" (0' Flaherty, 1980a:xi). Indeed, in a broader sense most abstract religious/ philosophical concepts evoke disagreements over meaning (note the concept of the Trinity in Christianity). In addition, there is the difficulty of translating concepts from such a radically different cultural system as Hinduism into a meaningful Western idiom. With these qualifications in hand, we can proceed with the discussion of these concepts. In its literal sense karma means 'action.' In an ethical context, in the U panisads it refers to an action that is morally significant. In later times it came to mean the unseen energy believed to be generated by the performance of an action. This energy eventually discharges itself upon the actor, causing that person to experience the consequences of the origi- nal act. But since justice can not be worked out within the span of one life, rebirth is necessarily assumed.

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 15 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andree F. Sjober[.; 55

According to Dandekar (1971:241), As the result of his original ignorance, man gets involved in a whole cycle of existences which has been revolving since eternity (samsara)-his do- ings in the course of one life inexorably governing the nature and conditions of his next life in a perpetual chain of causality (karma). His religio-philosophical summum bonum lies in mok.ya or his becoming free from this involvement through the realisation of his true nature, that is to say, of his essential identity with the one absolute reality. Thus mokya becomes the highest religious goal in nearly all the later Vedic texts. Although many scholars assume that these concepts are Aryan it is difficult to see in the earlier Indo-European or Indo-Iranian religion counterparts to this system, particularly the manner in which karma and sarhsara articulate with moksa and with dharma, the impersonal principle that is the basis of order in both the natural and the social realms. Despite the attempts by some to find the seeds ofkarma in the early Vedic sacrificial rituals (Boon, 1983:186; d. O'Flaherty, 1980b), the weight of the evidence points to a non-Aryan origin for the ideological complex karma- sa msara-mok'!a. Turning now to the concept of Brahman, one late ~g Vedic hymn (the Hymn of Creation) speculates about an impersonal divine force that is the single cause of creation. Referred to as "It" or "That One," it~ppears later in time as the Brahman of Vedanta philosophy and forms part of a very different matrix--one that is quite alien to the earlier Indo-European religion. The word brahman, as it appears in the Samhitas, means sacred utterance, (or the power generated thereby), but by the end of the Vedic period it had come to be applied to the idea of the"One" referred to in the Creation Hymn. I t is im portant to note that the Creation Hymn, concerned as it is with an abstract, impersonal divine force, stands out as clearly atypical. Most of the several thousand Vedic hymns were dedi- cated to a variety of deities, almost all of them male, who were partially personal conceptions of powers that are aspects of the natural world. The content of this hymn reflects the synthesis between the Aryan and non-Aryan cultures that had been pro- ceeding over the centuries. In the U pani~adic period Brahman came to be linked to the concept of alman. In the Samhitas alman had been the life-breath

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 16 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

56 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIO!';S REVIEW

that leaves the body at the moment of death and, in the (Oase of humans, rises to heaven. In time the idea of heaven essentially disappeared and litman came to be seen as ultimately identical with Brahman, as expressed in the LJpani~~Hlic formula lat t(lam (lsi "That (Brahman) thou (the human soul) art." As laehner (1966: viii) put it, "the basic doctrine of the Upanishads is the identification of Brahman with atman, that is to say, of the changeless essence that upholds the universe ... with the same changeless essence that indwells the human spirit." Renou (1953) sought to connect the later concept of Brahman with the earlier meaning of the word hrahman, arguing that Brahman still connotes "the Ialent energy underlying the old enigmatic f(nmulae" (p. 25). But this can only be a partial expla- nation of the development of the concept over time. (It must be remembered that Renou proceeded under the assumption that the Vedic religion developed within a cultural vacuum-see my earlier discussion.) He was not willing to entertain the possibility of extra-Aryan influences in Vedism. The cultural matrix within which Brahman and atmrw of later V cdanta philosophy appear includes I he vital concept of maya. In the Vedic hymns this word simply meant 'craftiness' or 'decep- tion.' In the course of time it came to refer to the phenomenal universe which is deemed to be ultimately illusory. Here 100, as was the case with Brahman and alman, highly sophisticated con- ceptualizations had been developed out of the relatively simple cuncepts of the early Vedic texts. We need to ask ourselves whether the earlier Indo-European or Indo-Iranian religion re- ally provides sufficient basis for the dramatic evolution in reli- giolls philosophy that occurred on Indian soil. Reluctant though many Indologists may be to acknowledge the non-.\ryan clement in the formation of Hinduism, it seems highly lIIlI'ealistic not to. Ami it must be recalled that of the non-Aryan peoples the Dravi- dians have formed the largest and mosl culturally ;ldvanced COIIl- ponent. Other important concepts from the Upani~adic period, ones til;lt stemmed mainly from non-Aryan inl1uellces, are yoga, .\(lmadhi, tapas, and ahirhsa. The indications that are yoga (which emphasizes techniques of mind controll()r spiritu;t\ ends) and the ascetic tradition in general are very old in India. The archaeologi- cal remains of the Indus civilization, which reached its zenith at

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 17 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andri'i' F. Sjoberg 57

least a thousand years before the composition of the flg Veda, include an amulet or seal from Mohenjo-daro in which the figure is seated in the classic yogi posture (oriisrma). It may be significant that the great fertility god of the post-Vedic period, Siva, is frequently depicted in this position (though the posture is not exclusive to him) and is widely known as the Great Yogi. The concept of srl/rtrlrifti 'concentration' is the highest level of yogic meditation tec hniq ues. And talms refers to the austerities typically associated wit h yoga and other practices of ascetics. Ahirnsa, too, is part of this cultural complex, for it refers to a kind of austerity involving non-injury to living things, particularly human and animal life. The origins of asceticism, which underwent its greatest development in the post-Vedic period, do not seem to lie in the Aryan culture. The appearance of the af(Jrementioned concepts in tlte Upani~adic period certainly points, along with other evidence, to a large-scale introduction of non-Aryan pat- terns into the (~reat Tradition during the Upanisadic period and a subsequent hlending of Aryan and non-Aryan features into the medley we call Hinduism. The Post-V('(lir Period. The post-Vedic era saw the systematic development of the great philosophies of India. The U pani~adic concepts discussed above, as well as others, eventually became integrated into coherent philosophical systems, especially by Sa11- kara and Ram;lnuja, and other important systems arose that drew partly on concepts from the Vedic texts and partly from those in non-Vedic traditions. Sailkhya and yoga, with their emphasis on punl~a-prak!,ti, stand out in this regard. Herein I shall not attempt to discuss the philosophical systems as they developed in Classical Hinduism. That is well beyond the scope or purpose of this essay. However, I will discuss briefly some of t he major concepts and relat~d practices that emerged, particularly as described in the "popular scriptures" ('lrflrti), such as the Epics, iJlcluding- the Bhagrwariglt(l and the Pura~Uls, which !lOW came to dominate t he literary scene. These arc to be distin- guished from t he revealed scriptures (.~ruti), which constitute the Vedic body 01 literature. The popular scriptures, like the re- vealed scriptures, belong to the Creat Tradition-though many features in them orig-inally grew out of the Little Tradition. Before proceeding, however, it is important to comment upon the heterodox philosophies, Jainislll and Buddhism, which ap-

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 18 *'

Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

58 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

peared at the beginning of the post-Vedic period. Both systems incorporated many concepts from the U pani~ads, though they interpreted them in somewhat different ways. However, because of their rejection of the Brahman priesthood and olthe Vedas as the ultimate authority they were thereby labeled as unorthodox. Jainism and Buddhism also drew upon the n~m-Aryan, mainly Dravidian, tradition. Zimmer (l951:2IH-219) observed that the history of Indian philosophy has been characterized largely by a series of crises of interaction between the invasive Vedic-Aryan and the non-Aryan, earlier, Dravidian styles o!thought and spiritual experience. The Brahmans were the principal representatives of the i()rrner, while the latte!" was preserved, and finally reasserted, by the surviving princely houses of the native Indian, dark-skinned, pre-Aryan population .... Jainism retains the Dravidian structure more purely than the other major Indian traditions-and is consequently a relatively simple, un- sophisticated, clean-cut, and direct manifestation of the pessimistic dualism that underlies not only Sailkhya, Yoga, and cady Buddhistic thought, but also much of the reasoning of the Cpanisads, and evell the so-called "nOll-dualism" o! the Vedanta ... I ndeed, Zimmer (p. 228) contended that the aJlalysis of the psyche that prevailed in the synthesis of the "Six Systems" of classical Indian philosophy was prefigured in the Jaina view and introduced via Sankhya and yoga. It was, he argued, originally a non-Aryan contribution. The system of Tantra, which emerged in the medieval period in India, perpetuated many of the ideas of Sankhya, particularly, and refined the application of the psychological principles al- luded to above. Zimmer (1951:219) saw these as affecting the whole texture of the religious life of India as well as much of the popular and esoteric Buddhist teaching in Tibet and East Asia. The Sankhya philosophy assumes two ultimate absolutes: jmrusa (Siva on the more popular plane), which is the masculine principle that symbolizes Spirit, and pmkrti (Sakti), the feminine principle that represents Matter. On one level these complemen- tary opposites rind their counterpart in the Brahman-Maya dichotomy of Advaita Vedanta. In the latter system, however, only Brahman is ultimately real, Maya fundamentally being illu- sIOn. As we turn now to a brief discussion ofthe greatlIindu god Siva and the leading goddess idea, Sakti, from the perspective of their

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 19 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andree F. Sjohng 59 worship on the popular level ofthe Great Tradition, we must take note of the recent controversy over the origins of5iva. It has long been assumed that Siva, whose worship in the post-Vedic period has been associated mainly with Dravidian India, was non-Aryan in origin. Certainly Siva is not prefigured in what we know of Indo-European or Indo-Iranian religion. Moreover, the Vedic deity Rudra, who displayed many features in common with Siva of the later period, has been thought by most scholars to repre- sent a blend of Aryan and non-Aryan ideas. But Srinivasan (1983), in her survey article, "Vedic Rudra-Siva," challenged l l these assumptions. : However, in the process she evinced certain assumptions of her own that seem dubious at best. One is the belief that because Rudra seems to her to be clearly Vedic, and by implication Aryan, Siva, the deity with whom Rudra became identified in the later Vedic texts, is therefore also Vedic and Aryan. Certainly, the fact that Siva is mentioned in these texts does not necessarily make him Vedic or Aryan. As we have al- ready seen, dramatic changes occurred in the later Vedic period with the inf1ux of increasingly more non-Aryan features. Also, the author seems unwilling to consider the possibility that the reason Rudra evolved from a relatively minor deity in the early period to a position of prominence in the ,Svetasvatara UPan~\'ad might have been because of his growing identification with the great Dravidian god Siva. Here again we see (as with Renou) the tendency to assume that the Vedic religion developed within a c'litural vacuum, which is patently unrealistic. (For one thing, it fails to take account of the linguistic findings pointing to Dravi- dian inf1uences as early as the period of the ~g Veda.) This kind of reasoning also permits the easy identification of Vedic with Aryan (though of course not all Aryan cultural traits were Vedic), and the failure to recognize that by the later Vedic period what is labeled as Aryan had already been diluted to a significant degree by borrowings from the non-Aryan culture. This leads us to a discussion of Sakti, the generic name for the Great Goddess and her various manifestations. Siva and Sakti are indissolubly linked, and Sakti is unarguably non-Aryan. (This is something that Srinivasan (1983) failed to take account of in her attem pt to categorize Sakti's consort Siva as Vedic, and by implica- tion Aryan.) Husband and wife in the Great Tradition, Siva and

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 20 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

60 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

Sakti are even more closely connected as polar, and comple- mentary, opposites in Sankhya philosophy and SHindus who give primacy to one of these male deities the belief is widespread that these and other male divinities are static and passive; they are powerless to act in the realm of matter and thus must draw upon the dynamic energy (.~(Jkti) of their spouses (Wadley, 1980). Human beings are also thought to possess ~akti, but females have it in much greater abundance than males. Although the notion of ~'(Jkti is widespread in Hind uism, 14 the fact that the concept is most highly developed in Tamilnad, and was given considerable em- phasis in the Tamil literature dating hack almost two thousand years, leads one to the view that the concept of ~{J!tti is mainly a Dravidian development. Gross (1978:279) made the point that in classical and modern Hinduism every manifestation of divinity, ranging from minor spirits to the Great Gods, has a female as well as a male manifesta- tion. For example, there are icolls of goddesses with all the major attributes of Vi~l}u and Siva; indeed t he entire Trimllrti occasion- ally aSSllmes female form. And rather late in the Vedic tradition the remnants of the old Vedic gods were assigned female COUll- terparts. This certainly bespeaks a strong indigenous, mainly Dravidian, impact on the iconography of India, possibly dating back to the later Vedic period. Sen (1983) is an exemplar of the popular approach among lndologists that seeks to ascribe a Vedic (and by implication an Aryan) origin to many prominent features of Hinduism, includ- ing goddess worship. Although he conceded, in his survey work on the Great Goddess in Indic tradition, that no clear picture of her emerged before the period of the Pural}as, he nevertheless confidently asserted that from the early and late Vedic texts we gather a group of female deities that later supplied the material with which the idea alld image of the great mother goddess was built up in India (p. 25).

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 21 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Andree F. Sjohng 61

Today goddess worship in Hinduism15 is most prominent in Dravidian India and in certain areas with a strong Dravidian substratum---e.g., Bengal. Aspects of it can apparently he traced to the pre-Aryan Indus civilization, which involved, among other features, worship of the female principle. The archaeological remains include a series of "ringstones" representing the yoni, the female counterpart of the phallic emblem, the {inga, which also has been found at Indus Valley sites. At the same time or earlier in the ancient Near Eastern and pre-Classical Mediterranean cul- tures worship of the female principle both as a maternal creative force and as an erotic and potentially destructive energy was a prominent feature of the religious systems of these areas. The ancestors of the Dravidians, who seem to have come from some- where in the aforementioned general region, very likely brought goddess worship to India with them a millennium or two before the Aryan entry into India. The Mother Goddess idea was of only minor importance in the Indo-European religion. Although the Classical Greek deities included many prominent female figures, these evidently were inherited from pre-Classical Mediterranean civilizations and the Old European culture (not to he confused with the Indo- European) (Gimhutas, 19H2). We referred to the fact that in India women are assumed to possess great amounts of ~{Jkti. A Ilumber of other Hindu custOIllS centering ahout women also seem to be basically non-Aryan. Hart (1973) has discussed these in detail, pointing to their prominence in ancient Tamil culture. He believes that a woman's chastity was far less important in the Vedic period in North India than it was later. I t seems likely that the ancient Tamil concept of the sacred power of the chaste woman was the source of these new patterns in post-Vedic North India. Certainly there was no precedent for them in the Aryan culture of the Vedic period. In the post-Vedic period new customs in North India such as the taboo Oil widow remarriage, ritual restrictions Oil widows, and the tahoo on a wife's uttering her husband's given name began to appear. But most of these patterns had been mentioned in Tamil poetry several centuries earlier. For instance, the North Indian work Skandapuraf!a listed virtually every vow expected of a widow that was mentioned in the Tamil poems of at least six centuries earlier: "tonsure, eating small amounts, not sleeping on a cot, and https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 22 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

62 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

offeringpi1.lfam to the dead husband" (Hart, 1973:249). It is likely also that widow burning, or sali, is non-Aryan. Hart argues that it is only in early Tamil literature that the real reasons for sali and widow asceticism are stated: i.e., the widow is filled with sacred forces that might endanger herself and others unless they are suppressed (p. 250). He also assumes that beginning in about the third century B.C.E. an influx of Dravidian elements into Aryan culture took place. This was a period when great numbers of Dravidian words entered Sanskrit and the spoken Indo-Aryan languages of the time, along with many poetic techniques and conventions from the oral literature of the Tamils and the Dravi- dians of the Deccan area (p. 250). Because of the matrilineal patterns that survived among the Dravidian N ayars of South India until quite recently and because of the emphasis given in the Dravidian kinship system to relatives on the mother's side, we can probably assume that this system was at one time matrilineally oriented. This may possibly tie in with the emphasis given to female deities among the Dravidians and the idea, most highly developed in the Dravidian subculture, that women possess an abundance of ,~akli. Earlier we indicated that the major concepts and related prac- tices that emerged in post-Vedic Hinduism find their literary expression in popular scriptures such as the Epics (including the Bhagavadgltii), the Pural.las, the Yoga Si"ilras, and eventually the Tantras and the emerging hhakti literature in the vernacular languages. Although some Indo-European (i.e., Aryan) elements appear within these post-Vedic works-most notably, the figure of Rama, the ideal Aryan chieftain-the non-Indo-European component is striking. According to Dandekar (1974:48-49) Vi~l.lu was a pre-Aryan fertility god before he was vitally trans- formed by the Vedic poet-priests into an "Aryan" deity. Certainly his dark-skinned incarnation K~~l.la incorporates important non-Aryan values. A number of other incarnations of Visnu, which take animal or half-human, half-animal form, lack cc;{m- terparts in the Indo-European tradition (except among the Greeks, who inherited much from pre-Indo-European civiliza- ~ions). Siva (the Great Yogi) is mainly Dravidian, as are his consort Sakti, who manifests herselfin many shapes and forms, and their sons Karttikeya, modeled after the prominent Dravidian warrior god Muruga!!, and the elephant-headed deity Gal.lesa, who is so

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 23 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

63

popular in India today. Other patterns without clear Indo- European parallels include the reverence shown to certain ani- mals, particularly snakes, and to some extent monkeys, as well as a variety of trees and other plants such as the tnlas!' Though wide- spread in India, these practices are especially prominent in the South, the area of the heaviest Dravidian concentration in recent times. Certain salient features of the Hindu worship-pilgrimages, the temple complex, other patterns associated with the temple, such as t he dance and the role of devadiLl1s, the vital place of images of the deities, and jJ/"ijii, the symbolic sacrifice in which fruits, flowers, powders, incense, etc., are offered-are non- Aryan. Of course, Sanskrit remains the preferred language of the rituals, and the Vedic deity Agni is always present in attenuated form; thus certain Aryan features have been preserved. But overwhelmingly the patterns associated with religious practice are non-Aryan and probably mainly Dravidian in origin. Before concluding this section on post-Vedic Hinduism, I shall draw attention to three areas of Indian culture whose significant Dravidian com pOllent has often been neglected in the literature-viz., bltrlkli, caste, and the martial arts. These patterns serve to rein f()rce my contentions concerning the vital role of the Dravidian heritage in Indian civilization. Bhakti mainly involves worship of a personal deity who has assumed the form ofa particular god or goddess, especially Vi~r}u and Siva, or, ill some regions of India, Satki. Through fervent devotion to that deity the worshipper eventually obtains mok~'a (release from the cycle of rebirths). This new religion of devotional theism is thought to have had its beginnings in North India at least by the third or second centuries B.C.\<:. But in its final form it combines influences from both North and South, and possibly also elements introduced by invaders from t he Middle East. I t is often not recognized that the South Indian (i.e., Dravidian) component was the crucial one in the formation ofhhakli as we know it today. Zaehner (1966:134), for example, ohserved that it was the Bhagayad-(;jta that set ill motion the transf()rmation of Hin- duism fnllll a Illystical technique based on the ascetic virtues of renuncia- tion and self-forgetfulness into the impassioned religion of self- abandonml'nt to Cod, but the strictly religious impulse which gave

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 24 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

64 COMPARATIVE CIVII.IZAI IONS REVIEW

momentum to the whole blwkti 1I10\Tment stelTlmcd hom the Tamil lands of south India. Froll1 the tenth century on all that is most vital in Hinduism manifests itself in the ftlrm ofblwkti. [On this matter see also Basham, 196H:332.] Furthermore, the highly elaborate philosophy of Sa iva Sid- dhanta, an intellectual analysis of the mystical exptTiences of the bhakta, or devotee, is distinctly and thoroughly Dravidian (Neill, 1974:62-63 ). On the matter of caste, the (lar~lOs 'classes' or 'orders' are un- doubtedly Aryan, but the system of hereditary castes and occupa- tions calledjatis is much more Dravidian than Aryan. We could also say that whereas the A ryan (Iar~za.l continued as the theoreti- cal basis of classical Indian society, the non-Aryanjrzlis made up its core and eventually carne to dominate in later Hinduism. Specifically, the moderate social differences of the early Vedic period became intensified as the sudras were added to the origi- nal Aryan three-class order as a fourth level. The sltdras were menials, and in the post-Vedic period this group apparently was expanded to include the great majority of Dravidians and some other non-Aryans. There is strong evidence to indicate that at least some pre-Aryan peoples, and particularlv the early Dravi- dians, already had a system ofjatis before the Arvanization of their cultures. In the course of time the (!ar~Ul system underwent modification, and the varlJfl andjrzti orders became interwoven into the highly elaborate ranking system of recent times. Hart (1975) has presented evidence for an emphasis on social differences, on wide gaps between certain sectors of the popula- tion among the early Tamils. The purity-pollution polarity, which is intimately bound up with caste, is certainly Dravidian. On the whole, the Dravidians have preserved the most extreme pattern~ of social distance among different caste groupings to he found in India today. Some mention might be made of the "martial arts" in India. The "martial arts" (not to be confused with techniques of warfare) have been concerned with "the art of the practice" and have traditionally been closely connected with spiritual disciplines and medical arts. They are an Asian development that arose first either in India or in China, or perhaps along the trade routes between the two regions around two thousand years ago.

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 25 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

A ndrpp F. .'ijohng 65

Some passages in the Indian epics point to the existence of "martial arts" ill North India, as does also the Agni Puriinam 16 (Dut!, 1967:H94-900). Here the art of archery involved, among other practice';, obeisance to masters, homage paid to the weapons, medicinal lore, religious rites (some of them Tantric in nature-e.g., the worship of phallic emblems), and "one- pointedness" and other features of meditation based on yoga. Such a constellation ofleatures see illS to be basically non-Aryan. Today the "martial arts" survive in only a few places in North India-in Manipur (in the extreme northeast), in Bengal, and in Rajasthan-whereas they are still flourishing in many villages in the Dravidian region, where they are deeply embedded in the social and religious lile of ruralites. In Illany parts of central and northern Kerala (in South India) various local communities maintain their own ka!aris (gym- nasiums or training grounds), which typically include a temple of a guardian deity, often a form of the goddess Bhagavafi or a combination of Siva and Sakti. In the ka!ari "martial arts" styles called ka!arifJpayailu are practiced by young boys (and sometimes girls). Earlier systems, particularlyapita?a (found also in Tamil- nad), underlie these forms. Also partofthe picture is physical and spiritual training based on yogic principles under masters who are versed in traditional medicine and the secret art ofmarma adi (the striking 01\ ital points) (see especially Zarrilli, n.d.; also Reid & Croucher, 1963: chap. 3, and Rao, 1957:25, 173). Interestingly, among the outgmwths of kafarif)payailu are Kathaka!i and other dance dramas of Kerala.

Thl' Little Trodilion Limitations of space f()l'ce me to refer only briefly to this topic. The Great Tradition certainly has drawn upon the Little Tradi- tion l7 and in tum the Little Tradition has been inic)rmed by the Great TraditioJl (see, e.g., Kurup, 1977; Whitehead, 1921:141- 142). But tracing this pattern of acculturation over time is well nigh impossible, given the fact that whereas the literary records tell us much about the Great Tradition, they make only relatively brief mention of the Little Tradition. Aspects of the latter have been recorded in detail only recently through field observation,

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 26 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

66 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

especially over the past half-century or so. However, even given these limitations on our knowledge, some general patterns can be discerned. The Little Tradition appears as an underlying stratum throughout Indian culture. At the same time it displays local and regional variations. I n a general sense we can speak of contrasts between the Little Tradition in South (or Dravidian) India and that in North (or "Aryan") India~always keepillg in mind that regions such as Bengal or Maharashtra, which alT usually cOllnted as "Aryan," display many non-Aryan feattlres. This is the case even on the level of the Creat Tradition, which in general show= less regional variation that the Little Tradition. Briefly, what are some prominent fCatu res of t he Little Tradi- tion? The most salient pattern is the plethora of female deities, including lIlany "Disease-Mothers" (Bahb, 1975; Whitehead, 1921; Kurup, 1977). It is said that every village has its tutelary goddess, along with a variety of other deities, male and female, with the male deities usually being subordinate to the female. Thus in the Little Tradition the (~oddess is lIlore ascendant than her male consort, whereas in the Creat Tradition the situation is reversed. In the region of Central India and nearby areas that Babb (1975 :226) studied, "a shrine or tern pie housing a goddess is an apparently indispensable part of t he village scent'." And unlike the great gods and goddesses, the local divinities are not consid- ered to be remote figures; they easily ellter into ordinary human affairs. Cattle rituals and animal sacrifice have long been widespread in South Indian villages; even a kind of bullfighting mentioned two thousand years ago in early Tamil poems still survives in south- ernmost India. Veneration for snakes is prominent in both the Little and the Great Traditions, particularly in the Dravidian area and Bengal (e.g., Kurup, 1977; Elmore, 1984; Neff, 1987). Serpents or niigas, many of which are depicted as female in Hindu art forms, are believed to bestow prosperity, fertility, and healing. Thus many traditional South Indians today keep snakes in their gardens and regularly feed them. We have indicated that the Little Tradition, particularly in the Dravidian area, preserves certain very ancient patterns in India

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 27 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Arulrff F. Sjolif'Tg 67 such as goddess worship. cattle rituals and snake worship. Signifi- cantly. these were also prominent features of the ancient pre- classical circull1-Meditt;rranean and Near Eastern religious prac- tice. As noted earlier. this is the general geographic region from which certain Dravidian cultural traits are thought to have sprung and the area from which many of the ancestors of the Dravidians are assumed to have spread. To conclude this brief section on the Little Tradition, there is also worship of many minor divinities oflocalized folk origin such as yak.ylS, yak5is. and ajJ.mrfls. The last two are female figures associated with animals, trees, and sacred rivers. According to :v1ichell (l977:3:~), "the oldest monumental sacred sculptures that have been preserved, such as those from central India dating back to the second and third centuries B.C., do not represent the principal gods and goddesses of Hinduism but these folk spirits."

Concluding Rnnorks One of the great stumbling blocks to achieving an understand- ing of the origin and development of Indian civilization has been the strong pro-A.ry~\I1 bias on the part of Western Indologists. :v1ainly this bias has stemmed from the fact that the Aryan com- ponent in Indian culture has been seen as an extension of the European cultural heritage, which has been presumed to be superior. Many Indologists have then proceeded on the assump- tion that the Vedic and post-Vedic cultures in North India were overwhelmingly Aryan. Case (19H5:114) has posited the existence of a "Brahmanical, textual" bias of Europeans (particularly British colonialists) toward Indian culture that "may have helped to create the Brahmanical tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a form that had not previously existed." It may not be out of place to suggest here that a major im perative for Western scholars, including those specializing in South Asia, is a re-evaluation of the role of minority peoples, who in a sense fall into Wolfs (19H2) category of "people without history." I emphasized carlyon that the beginnings of a re-evaluation of the role of the Dravidians and their culture have recently been discernible; evell Basham was led to revise his earlier assessment of this cultural entity. My own views conform most closely to those of Tyler. Still, I have proceeded in ways that he and others

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 28 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

68 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

apparently have not. For example, I have assumed from the outset that we must first set the Indian culture within a broader historical context--one that transcends the boundaries of the South Asian region. With this in mind I have asked myself the question: "Why do so many allegedly Aryan cultural traits in India apparently lack counterparts in areas of Indo-European settlement outside of India?" The answer very likely is that many of these features were either part of the pre-Aryan heritage or else were the products of an Aryan-non-Aryan synthesis. I have also attempted to deal with the question of which pre- Aryan peoples exerted the greatest amount of influence upon the Aryam in South Asia. I have argued, through the logic of eliminating alternative explanations, that, based lIpon the data available to us (mainly linguistic but also to some extent cultural and archaeological), the Dravidians are those who most clearly left their mark upon the Aryans, even in the early Vedic period. It is significant that few observers of Indian history have given due recognition to the linguistic data, relying almost entirely upon cultural, archaeological, and to some extent racial findings. Yet the linguistic record is in many ways the most crucial; certainly it constitutes the firmest evidence that we have on the Aryan- Dravidian confrontation. The assumption has been strong, on the part of both Indians and Westerners, that because the Aryans culturally conquered the indigenous peoples in the subcontinent they t hereiilre were the primary shapers of the course of Indian civilization. But the broad spectrum of the data would seem to indicate otherwise. The Aryans were essentially cut off from their Indo-European relatives, and as they moved ever more deeply into the cul-de-sac of the Indian subcontinent they were to a high degree absorbed linguistically, culturally, and racially by the indigenous, primarily Dravidian, peoples and cultures. Certain Aryan features survived--most notably the role of Sanskrit as the primary vehicle in the creation and transmission of the sacred literature. But what stands out in India is the enormous amount of syncretism that has occurred in language, culture, and physical type. Herein I have argued that the historical tacts concenling the origin and development of Indian civilization belie the traditional image that most Inclologists have had of the Dravidians. As with most minorities, the Dravidians have either been generally ig- nored or else imbued with a distorted image. If my assessment is

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 29 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

A.ndrp£, F. Sjohng 69

correct, a considerable re-evaluation of the course of dev~lop­ ment of one of the world's great civilizations is in order.

Tit" Unilll'rsity oj [",'W,I al Awlin

NOTES

I. Sec, e.g., Pedersen's (I9H4) discussion of the salient role of the European Romanticists in the propagation ufthis view. Also sec Leopold, 1970:272-273. 2. For example, Basham remarks that "the wild fertility cults of the early Tamils ill\olved orgiastic dancing, and their earliest liter'ature shows that prostitution was common among them; thlls religious jJrostilu· lion camp /loiumllv to the [)nwidimzs (p. IH7). (Italics supplied.) 3. Kuiper (19ti7:94-96) indicates that the Munda languages have since the prehistoric period tended to adapt to Dravidian linguistic patterns. 4. The three kingdoms into which the Tamil country has traditionally been divided-t he C()!~l, the Cera, and the Par.Hlya--were mentioned by the grammarian Katyayana (l(llirth centul'y B.C.E.) ami in the inso'ip- tions of Asob, whose f()lTes invaded South India in the third century B.C.E. 5. From the f'nijlllls ojlhr' h'rythrmr/ Sm (first century C.E.), Ptolemy's (;eo,l..,1TajJ/rv (second century), and early Tamil poems and the Tamil epic, S'i/ajJj)(Jriigiimm (pl'Obably the third century), we learn many details of the flourishing ports of the Tamil countl'y and their significant trade with Roman Egypt. 6. In a more recent book Ilock (I9H6) seems to modify his stance somewhat, downplaying the MUIl(/as and emphasizing the 6ravidians a bit more. If it were the case that the ~undas were at one time a significant linguistic entity, then why are so very few \1unda loanwords to be fCllll1d in Dravidian? This question has appparently not been considered by scholars of Hock's persllasioll. For a discussion of tire linguistic data supporting the thesis that the major external force acting upon the Indo-Aryan gl'arnmatical structure has been the presencc ()fthe Dravidian languages, see Sjoberg, f()rthcom- ing I !J91: Sjoberg, i()rt hcolllillg. 7. Significantlv, two important words fOl' 'city'-nag([rrI and jla?tmw- were incorporated into Sanskrit, evidently 1i'0I11 Dravidian (Southworth, I979:20H). It ,trains the imaginatioIl to believe that the Aryans would have borrowed such terms frolJl a people of simpler culture than their' own. H. This should not be taken to imply that the Dravidians or their culture are necessarily connected with Allstralia. It is true, however, that an important Llcial 'componellt among the Dravidians is the proto- Australoid, a category that has connections with early populations of Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Australia, ,111(1 Oceania. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 30 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

70 COMPA RAT I VEe I V I L1I:ATIONS R~.V I EW

9. This is part of a concept ual framework developed hy Robert Red- field, who, according to Leslie (1968:352), conrfived oj Cil'iliwtio/l.1 in (liltuml talll.1 as systnll.l oj (()I'xisting lind intrrriPjJmrient "(;rfllt IInri Little Trariitions," tlip jorma IIPing /)([rt oj till' iriNI systnns--lhe .Icima, jJhilosojJhy, lind Jille IIri.l-o! the rritiml and rejlath'f' elile lind the latter being /)([rl oj thejolk II ri.1 , IOTe, (Ind religion oj thl' common jJfojJ/e. In this p;lper I extend the concept of the Great Tradition to include those beliefs and practices that constitute the Illaimtrealll Ilindllislll of today and genel',llh find expression in thc hodv oflllainstrcalll religioll.' texts. (her se\cral millennia elelllcnts of t he Lit t Ie Tradit ion havc hccn gradually absorbed into the Creat Tradition. TilliS, in the IMst tilt' makeup of the Great Tr,ldition \'aricd during diflcrcnt tillle periods. 10. The (;l-eat Tradition ill India should not be confused with the so-called" Aryan" tradition. Scholars such as Clot hey (1978:45) speak of the" Aryan" or .oN orthern" tradition as if they were coterminous with the Great Tl-ac!ition. I do not f(Illow this practice. When I emplov this concept (except when discussing the Vedic period) I assullle an amalgam of features that on the whole mav be lIlore non-Arvan than Arvan. Elmore (1984), writing in 1913, used t';e term "Brahm;u{ic" ti)J' the (;reat Tradi- tion. At times he even equated "Hinduism" with the Creat Tradition and thus saw a contrast between "Hindu" and "Dravidian" (e.g., pp. 151-152). What he was really comparing was the Great and Little Tr,l(Iitiol1S in India. I I. There wcre earlier attempts to idcntify borrowings frolll Dra\i- dian into Sanski-it, most notahlv hv Bloch (I~)()!J). For a dNussion of the cady work, sec Ell1cneau (1951 :2H!J-2S()). 12. Even as late as the 1980s we sce the failure of certain influential Indologists to take account of the linguistic and broader cultural ev-i- deIKe, e.g., Srinivasan, 1983. 13. Other recent wOl-ks on Siva, mainly bv art historians, apparentlv assume this deity to be basically Aryan. Clearly t he\ do not adequately recognize the non-Aryan (or Dravidian) factor (e.g., Kr;tmrisch, 19S1a, 198Ib). 14. Many references to .\([kti, with the specific llleaning of the sacred power of a chaste woman, appeared in North India beginning in the period of the Epics and thc PUral)as. 15. The cult of the Creat Coddess underwent dramatic developmcnt in Mahayana Buddhism, especially in the Tantric sects. In turn this had an impact on Hinduism. These patterns OCCUlTed mainlv in Bengal and other parts of northeastern India, as well as in areas influenced bv the latter, Tibet in particular. Farther to the south in India, worship of the "Mother of the Buddhas" and other female symbolism arose in some prominent Mahayana sects centered in Andhr:l·Pradesh (Palll, 1980:9- 13,138). Jainism, too, was affected by Hindu Mother C;oddess cults. 16. I am grateful to Phillip l.alTilli f(Ir calling my attention to this source and f(x his general assistance in clarifying the nature and distribu- tion of ka!ari!JjHlWlt!II. He is not responsible f(ll the conclusions I hav-e drawn from the data on the "martial arts."

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 31 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

71

17. To cite onl) one instance, certain features of the typical religious ohsen'anccs of women in the Great Tradition, as opposed to the practices of men--c.g., t he popularity among women of t he veneration of Gal?eSa-SeeIll to have their source in the Little Tradition.

REFERE]'.;CES

,\llchin, Bridget & Ravlllond. 196H. The Hirlh oj Inriirm Cillilizatiur/. Balti- Illore: Penguin Books. ---. 19H2. The Ri.le oj Ci"iliwlion in India lind Pakistall. Cambridge: Call1bridge l'nivcrsity Press. Babb. Ll\\Tl'lHC A. 197:>. The /)il'il/I' lIil'lllnhy: Po/m/llr flinrillisill ill Cen- 1m/II/rim. Ne\\ York: ColuIllhia l;nivcrsitv Press. B:l'ihaIll .. \. L. I ~)(iH. The \Vonrln Thill WIIS india. :'\cw York: Taplinger Publishing Company. Third revised edition. (First published in 1954.) ---. 1979. Ar,al/ ({lIri /Voll-Aryall in South Asia. In: Aryan and Non- Aryan in India, cds. Madhav M. Deshpande & Peter Edwin Ilook. Pp. 1-9. Ann Arbor: Center I()r South and Southeast Asian Studies, The lTniversitv of Vlichigan. BI()(:h . .Ilde;. 19fi5.llld;J-Ar'lo1l: From tlie Verias to il1.oriem Thnes. Translated hy Alfred Master. Paris: Libt'arie Adrien Maisonneuve. (Original in French, 193·~). Boon, .lames A. 19H3. Incell Rew/Jtllred: Some Contraries oj Karma in Ra/i1ll'\e SWII/JII/O,!.,"!. In: KarIna: An Anthropological Inquiry, eds. Charles F. Knes & E. Valentine Daniel. Pp. IH5-222. Berkeley: Uni- versit v of Calif()I'I1ia Press. ButTo\\,. T. l(j·ICI. SOIllC Dravidian \\'ords in Sanskt'it. Tmnl(Jl'/lIJYI.I oj IiiI' Phil%glill/ Sool'h' 79-120. ---. 194(i. Loanwords in Sanskrit. TmllsarlioYl.loj the PIill%gim/ SOI'/et\' l-:W. ---. 1917-I~jIH. [)rayidian Studies VII: Further lhavidian \Vords in Sanskrit. 811//(111101 Ihl' Srho()/ 01 ()ril'lIll1/lIl1d Alrimll SllIdip.I 12: :)b:-'<)~)(i. ---. 1955. The Sall.llirillJUlglIllge. London: Faber and Faber. Burrow, T. & \1. B. Emt'ncall. 1961. A Dravidiall Elylrl%gim/ Dictior/ary. Ox /()nl: Clarclldon Press. ---. 196H. A /)rfll'idirw FtYlrl%gim/ Dictior/ary. Supplement. Ox/()ni: Clarelldoll Press. Case. l\LIl·garet. 19H5. Thl' WI'.lt anri SOlllh Asia. In: As Others See Cs: \lutllal Perceptions. East alld West, eds. Hernanl Lewis, Edmund Leites. & Margaret Case. Pp. 113-1 Hi. New York: International Society lor the Comparative Study of CiviliJ:;\tions. Chatterji, SlIniti Kumar. 1951. Racl'-MOllements alld Pre-Historir Culture. Ill: The Vedic Age. Bombay: Bharafiya Vidya Bhavana. ----. 1l)59. The Indian Synthesis. and Racial and Cultural Illter- \lixtllrc in India. [mlli/ C/I/IIIII' H: 267-32-1. ---. 1965. /)/(Il'iriiarl. Allll

72 COMI'ARA l'I\'1'; CIVILlJ:A'IIONS REVIEW

Dandekar, R. N. 1967. Soml' ASjll'{ts ojlhl' lIistor'), oj lIinrillism. Poona: l'niversity 01 Poona. ---. 1971. }findlliwi. In: Historia Religion lIlIl , I i;mdhook I())' the II isto1'\' of Religions, I L cds. C. .J ouco Rice kn &: (;eo Widcnglcll. Pp, 237-345. Leidcn: E .. 1. Brill. Deshpande, Madhav M. 1979. Cml's/.I Ojl(1!,1'1'(1iC Helmjlf'xioll: A Illstoriml lind Soriollnguistir hWl'sligat/oll. In: Aryan and N Oll- A rya II ill India, cds. Madhav M. Deshpancle & Peter Edwin Hook. Pp. 235-3J:i. Ann Arbor: Center I(H' South and Southeast Asian Studies, The l'niversity of Michigan. ' Durkheim, Emile. 1951. SlIicldf': A SllIdy in SOCilllll,!.,':'!. Tramlated by John A. Spaulding & (;eorge Simpson. Glencoe, III. Free Press. (Original in French, IH97.) Dut! (Shastl'i), Manll1atha Nath, tr. 1967. Agni 1'lIrii1/olr/. ChowkhamiJa Sansknt Series, 54. Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office. FideI', .Joseph \\' .. ed. 1970.1.1'111111'1 III IlIriiflll ell·llizlliioll. Duhuquc: Kendall/llunt Publishing Company. Elmore. W. T. 19H4. Dr-m.idian CIIIlI ill !'vlorinn lIindllil/lI. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. (First published 1913, Uni\'{,Tsity of l\"e- braska.) hneneall, M. B. 1954. Linguistic Prehistory 01 India. I'rol'l'l'dings oj IiiI' Alllnimrl P/tilolojlhiml Sociply 9H: 2H2-292. ~-'--. 1956. India as a Linguistic Area. l.onglloge 32: 3-W. ---. 1962. Bilingualism ,me! Struct lira I Borrowing. IJ/'iItfl'dings oj thf Amnimn Philosojl/tiral Socielv 106: 4:'W-442. ---. 1974. The Indian Linguistic Are;l Revisted. lntf'rt/flliollol/ollrrlri/ oj lhm.idian Linguistirs 3: 92-134. Fairsenis, Waiter A. & Franklin C. SOUl hworth. 19H6. Ungllislir Arrhlll'ol· o!-''Y ond thl' Indus Vollp), Cullurl'. Paper presented at the Illcetings of the American Anthropological Association, Deccmber, 19H6. (;imhutas, Marija. 19R2. The (;oddl'ssl'.1 and Codl 01 Old Furojll'. :--Jew and updated edition. London: Thames & Iludsoll. Cross, Rita M. 197H. Hindu Female Deities as a Resource lor the Con- lemporary Rediscovery of the (;oddess.joumaloillil' A nl/'1'I1 lUi :\((ull'my IIj Rl'ligion 46: 269-291. Hart, Ceorge L, Ill. 1973. WOlllall and the S;l(lcd in Anci('nt Tamilnad. JOUri/%f ;1lioll Sllidil'.1 '\2: 2,)3-250. ~~--. 1975. Till' Poems oj Ancimt Tamil: TIll'll' Milif'1I ond thl'il' Sonskril COllntN/mrts. Berkeley: University of Calif()J'nia Press. ---. 19HO. The Theory ojRl'illCflrrlatiollllmong thl' Tllrnill. In: Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, ed. Wendy Donigcr OTlahertv. Pp. 116-133. Berkeley: University of Calil()mia Press. Hock, Hans Henrich. 1975. SubstratuITI Influencc Oil (Rig-Vedic) Sanskrit? Siudil's in the Ungllist/I' Sl'inUI'1 5: 76-12·5. -'~--. ElH6, Prinl'ijlll'l 01 Hillonml l.ingllillill. Berlin: \jollion dc (;n/v- I t'['. Hopkins, Thomas J. 1971. Till' Hindll Hl'ligioll.1 Tradition. Encino, CA: Dickenson Publishing Company. I lord. John. 19H7. The Twilight of the Coddess: An Ancicnt Religious

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 33 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4

Aruiri'I' F. Sjo/!I'I,I!, 73

Rnolution. (;om/mmtil'l' Civilizations RelJiew 16:57-91. Katre, Sumitra Mangesh. 1964.l'mkrit/,rLn,l!,urL,I!,e.1 and Tltl'ir Contribution to I nriian Cult IIII'. I'oona: Dcccan College Post-grad uate and Research lmtitllte. Kramrisch, Stella. 19H1a. Manijfslalions 0/ Shim. Philadelphia: Philadel- phia Mu.selllll of Art. ~~-. 19H 1b. FitI' I'rl'.wf!a oj Siva. Princcton: Princeton University Press. Kuiper, F. B . .J. 1967. The Cenesis of a Linguistic AI'ea. Indo-Iranian jOllrnal 10: 1'2-102. Kurup, K. K. N. 1977. Aryan and Drm'iriian Elrmrnts in Malabar Folklore. Trivandnllll: Kerala II istorical Society. Leopold, Joan. 1970. Thc Aryan Theo;'y of Race. Indian Economic and Soria/llistor), Rfl'iew 7:271-297. Leslie, Charles M. 1961'. Robert Hl'd/il'ld. In: International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, cd. David L Sills. Vol. 13, pp. 350-353. New York: Macmillan & Free Press. l\farlow, Elli Johanna Pudas. 1974. Mol'l' on tlte Uralo-Drrwidian Rflation- Ihi/I: A Com/)(Irisorl 0/ l1mlir and Dmvidian Etymolo,l!,ical Vocabularies. Ph.D. dissel'lation. Austin: The University of Texas at Austin. \1eenakshi, K. 19H5. Emergence of Classical Sanskrit (A Sociological Study). Illtfmatiorwl/oun!al oj Drrl1'iriian Lin,l!,l1istics 14: 209-223. Michell, GCOl'ge. 1977. Thl' lIindu Tl'm/lll'. New York: Harper & Row. Neff, Deborah L. 191'7. AI'.lthl'til'.l and Power in Piimbin Tullal.· A Possession Hitllaloj Hilmi Kfmla. Ethnoloh'Y 26:63-71. " :\'eill, Stephen. 1974. Bhakti: lIindli and Christiall. Madras: Christian Lit- eratUl'li Society. O'Flaherty, W('n'dy Doniger. 19HOa. Introduction. In: Karma and Rebirth in CirLI.liml I fldirlll Twditirms, cd. Wendy Doniger C)'Flaherty. Pp. ix- xxv. Berkelev: l;ni\'ersity of California Press. ~~-. 19KOb. Karma !LIlli r(l'hirlh in thf Vl'das andl'llranas. In: Karma and Rebirth in Classical I ndian Traditions, eel. Wendy Doniger 0' Flaherty. Pp. :)-37. Berkeley: lJniversity oj Calif()rnia Prcss. Palll, Diana \bry. 19HO. Thl' Buddhist Feminine !rlml. Missoula, Montana: Scholal's Press. Pedersen, Potd. 191'4. The Racial Trap of India: Reflections on the I listorv oj a Regional Ethnography. Folk 26: 5-24. Raj, T. David Manuel. 1971. Silll1lllmm: A Brie/Historical Review and Emlu- ation. In: Proceedings oj the Second International Conference Semi- nar oj Talllil Studies, Vol. II, cd. R. E. Asher. Madras: International Association oj Tamil Research. PI" 2HO-2H3. Rao, M. S. A. 1957. Sorilll Changl' ill Malahar. Bombay: Popular Book Depot. Reid, Howard & Michael CrollciJer. 1983. Thl' Fighting Arts. New York: Simon & ScI! lister. Renoll, Louis. 1953. Rl'ligirJr/.1 oj Ancient India. London: Univel'sity of London: Athlone PITSS. Sell, Sukumar 191'3. Thf' (;r('([1 Goriril'sses in /nriir Tradition. Calcutta: Papyrus. Sjoberg, Andn'T F. 1971. Who mp the Dral'iriirllls? The Present State oj https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 34 Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat

74 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZA'I IONS REVIEW

Knowledge, In: Symposium on Dravidian Civilization, ed. Andree F. Sjoberg. Pp. 1-26. Austin/New York: Jenkins Publishing Company. --~. Forthcoming 1991. TlIP ImjHlri oj fJwl!ldlllll Oil Inr!o-ArVlw: All Oven,iew. To appear in a volume edited by Edgar C. Polomt' and Warner Winter in the series Trends in Linguistics. Berlin and New York: :\iollton de Cruyter. --~. Forthcoming. fJr(fl,ldillll lind the AgpJlllillat/l'I' iJIllglIIJgr TV/Ie: 1/11- /Jlirat/onsjor FrnenPflll's IndlaTl 1.lnguistlr Arm. To appear in an edited volume of the papers of the International Conference on Language and National Development: The Case of India. Hyderabad: Depart- ment of Linguistics, Osmania University. Southworth, Franklin C. 1974. Unguistle Stratigraphy oj North Indill. In: Contact and Convergence in South Asian Languages, eOxford University Press. Zarrilli, Phillip B. n.d. Three Bodies ojPmrti((' In II Tmditlorllli S;lIllh Indilln Martial Art. Unpuhlished ms. Zimmer, Heinrich. 1951. Philosophies oj/ndia. Edited by Joseph Campbell. New York: Pantheon Books. Zvelebii, Kamil. 1973. The Smile ojMllrugan: On Tllmlll-itemtllre oj SOlllh India. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ----. 1975. Tamil Utemture. Leiden: Brill.

Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 35